monosyllabic
by fairytalelights
Summary: Dani's making her way around the world when she stumbles into Burgess, and she meets people who may end up being more important to her than she thinks. (Jamie Bennett isn't half bad - and neither are his friends. And she supposes the Guardians are pretty cool.) Maybe, just maybe, she'll finally be able to find a home.
1. welcome to burgess

**Written on the spur of the moment. Because I think Dani's really cool. And Jamie is _so _cute. **

**(Yes I know! Thousand and one stories to update omg but I mean okay it's not like my stories really have a lot of crazy readers right so yeahh I'm entitled to spamming stories I think) **

**(Besides I just made my 'Getting Fixed' story a twoshot and I think I may stop the oneshots for now because you know ultra spammage) **

**To continue or not to continue this tale, that is the question! (yeah, okay, I'm kind of really tired now.) **

**Hope you enjoy?**

* * *

><p>Dani had been called many things. Annoying. Reckless. A nuisance. Crazy. Wild. Vulnerable. Naïve. Street-smart. And, on one occasion, created to serve a crazy old fruit-loop.<p>

She was not usually called thoughtful. But she was pretty sure that was what she was being now.

She kicked at the snow on the ground, wondering where she should go and get some food. She should probably go ghost and find some shelter, and some food – but it was so _nice _just to stroll along the pavement like a normal human, the snow falling gently around her, with no ghosts to battle or fight off.

Dani glanced up as she neared a park. She could see a couple of kids her age messing around – a scrawny boy with messy brown hair, a large girl with a tutu, a pair of dark-skinned twins, a slim, pretty girl in a hat, a small, geeky-looking boy. She could hear them laughing as they flung snow at each other, toppling and pushing each other over, and something clenched in her heart.

She wouldn't give up her powers or abilities for the world. But sometimes, every once in a while, she wished that she could have a normal, carefree life like that too. Like any other eleven-year-old.

Then she shook her head, determinedly. She _liked _doing what she did. She liked travelling the world, and exploring, and helping out wherever she could, leaving her own mark on the world, doing her own brand of good, the way Danny always saved Amity Park again and again.

As she walked along the park, the brown-haired boy looked up and grinned at her.

It was instinctive. Dani grinned back.

"Hey!" the boy called, and he stumbled over and beamed brightly at her. "Are you new here? I've never seen you around Burgess before!"

Burgess. Right. That was where she was.

Dani shrugged, and smiled at him. "I'm kind of just passing through."

"Hey, you wanna join in the snowball fight?" the boy smiled at her. "We were thinking boys versus girls, but we've only got like two girls and there's four of us boys, so it's not really fair, even though Monty isn't really good at this – "

He looked at her hopefully.

Dani looked over at the group of kids standing in the snow, waiting for their friend. Getting invited to join a snowball fight? Usually, she didn't have the time to do stuff like this, even though she still liked having fun where she still could. After all, she was on her own, drifting from place to place. Kids tended to avoid her and her scruffy clothing. But she didn't really have anything to do right now (Burgess seemed pretty peaceful), and he was grinning at her so brightly, looking like he actually really wanted her to join in –

"Okay, sure," she said.

His face brightened. "Really? Awesome!" And then, as if remembering himself, told her, "I'm Jamie."

She grinned at him: "My name's Dani."

* * *

><p>"THAT WAS AWESOME!"<p>

Jamie laughed at the black-haired girl jumping around in the snow, emerging triumphantly from the hastily-made fort she, Cupcake and Pippa had built. The girl was, quite simply put, amazing. She moved like lightning, leaping and darting and throwing snowballs at him and the rest of the boys with deadly accuracy.

She'd looked kind of lonely, making her way along the pavement in her red hat and jacket and her jeans; and it was because of that that Jamie had run along and asked her to join the game. She looked like she could use some fun.

Speaking of fun –

"Hey, Jamie!"

The eleven-year-old nearly fell over in the snow as he spun around, a huge grin splitting his face: "Jack!"

The white-haired winter spirit laughed as he landed on the ground next to him, lightly. "How's it going, kid?"

"You just missed one of the best snowball fights we've had the whole year," Jamie told him.

"Yeah?" Jack was grinning at him, as if doubting the amount of fun they had with snowball fights without him around.

"Yeah, there's this girl we got to play with us, her name's Dani – "

"Hey, Jack!"

"JACK! We missed you!"

It was then that the rest of the kids started swarming around the winter spirit, who laughed as he was tackled to the ground.

And then he raised his head to see the dark-haired girl behind the kids looking over at him with a slightly guarded look, as if worried that he would suddenly attack her. Her stance shifted, slightly – and Jack recognised it immediately as a fighting stance. It was the same kind of stance the other Guardians like Bunny and North dropped into instantly, when expecting danger.

This girl knew how to fight.

"You can see me?" he asked, clambering to his feet and brushing some snow off, shaking his head of white hair.

"Yeah," she said. "Am I supposed to _not _see you?"

"You can see him!" Jamie cheered. "Dani, this is Jack Frost, he brings the snow and the blizzards and everything – but you should know that, right? Since you believe in him?"

Dani blinked. "Since I believe in him?"

Jack's mind went into overdrive. How could this girl see him if she didn't believe in him?

"Yeah," he said, looking at her thoughtfully. "Only kids who believe in me can see me."

Dani looked at him, and Jack thought he could see the wheels in her brain spinning and turning, trying to make sense of the situation. "Guess I must be special. You're a ghost, aren't you?"

Jack laughed. "You could say so. I'm the winter spirit."

"The winter spirit," Dani repeated. "Sounds cool." And then almost at once the guarded expression on her face fell, and a grin was spreading across her face. "So how good are you at snowball fights?"

"Oh, better than you'll ever be," Jack told her.

A glint had come into her eyes. "You wanna bet?"

* * *

><p>It was incredible. The girl had beaten <em>him<em>.

Night had fallen long ago, and Jack had just flown out the window from Jamie's room. After the epic snowball fight, after which Dani had spent at least five minutes dancing across the snow, they'd all headed home, Dani refusing all offers of guidance, reassuring them that she'd be fine making her way through a town she hardly knew. Jack could still remember the way she darted and ducked, evading the snowballs almost effortlessly; how she flung the snowballs at him with ruthless and deadly precision.

He'd never seen anyone move like that. Much less a _kid_.

He wondered about Dani. She'd refused to give a surname, had refused all offers of help, had seemed to be familiar enough with making her way around on her own. And the way she'd slipped into a fighting stance, as if she'd been fighting for months, or years. But the kid was only _eleven_. There was no way she could –

"So, you're Jack Frost?"

He nearly let out a yelp and swung his staff around, only to find a girl floating behind him, her hair a brilliant white, her eyes a dazzling green, dressed in some sort of black-and-white suit with a fancy 'D' on it. She looked like she was about Jamie's age.

"Who are you?" he demanded.

She grinned at him, and turned so she was floating upside-down.

"I'm Dani Phantom," she said.

* * *

><p><strong>Hmm. I don't know. What do you guys think? <strong>


	2. a dead eleven-year-old

**hey! yay so...back with the second chapter for this. Dani is so cute but since she was only in like 2 episodes or something I'm still trying to figure out how to write her haha. **

**Thanks to IWasNeverReal and Ninuhuju for the reviews!**

**Oh, and before I forget, D-Stabilised has already happened, and Phantom Planet's never happened. **

**hope you enjoy!**

* * *

><p><em>Dani Phantom.<em>

_Dani._

Jack immediately thought of the young girl he'd seen earlier with Jamie and his friends. But that was impossible. That girl had been human and black-haired and blue-eyed and in worn-out clothing, and this girl was – this girl wasn't.

"What are you?" he decided to ask.

"A ghost," she said.

"A _ghost_?"

"Hey, you're a winter spirit, aren't you? It's the same thing!"

He nodded, but he still looked at her cautiously. "So what are you doing here?"

She shrugged her shoulders. "I don't know. I travel a lot. I just happened to pass through here."

"So you're like a visiting ghost," Jack said, as he lowered himself down onto the nearest rooftop, leaning against his staff. Dani did the same. "I always thought ghosts had an obsession or something. You know. That that was what kept them going."

He could vaguely remember hearing one of the Guardians talk about it before. He thought it could have been Tooth – she'd been complaining, he remembered, about some town where lots of her fairies were too afraid to go into because of the ghost attacks. Amity something.

Dani nodded. "Yeah." And then she grinned. "For all you know, my obsession might just be travelling around the world."

"That sounds like a lame obsession."

"You would know. I bet you _invented _lame."

"Oh, very funny."

"I thought so too," Dani said, cheerfully.

Jack looked at her again, and was immediately struck by how _young _she was. She couldn't be much older than Jamie. Which meant she must've been really young when she died. Something gnawed at his heart, looking at the white-haired girl sailing through the air beside him.

"What are you thinking?" Dani asked, suspiciously. "I can see the look on your face."

"You're pretty perceptive," said Jack. "It's just – " he paused, and then pressed on: "You look really young."

Something flashed across Dani's face in the darkness, an emotion that Jack couldn't quite see or understand. But there had been sadness in that quick flash, a sadness he himself knew.

"I haven't been around very long," Dani said, finally.

* * *

><p>Dani had learnt to read people quickly, and easily. It was something she'd made herself learn, after her encounter with Valerie – she never wanted to be captured like that again, even if Danny had convinced Valerie to help her. Sure, she wasn't always accurate, but she did more or less okay.<p>

Right now, she was trying to read Jack. She'd gotten a sense of him just now, during the snowball fight – a guy who liked to have fun, and who made it something like his responsibility to look after Jamie and his friends.

She'd hesitated before revealing herself as Dani Phantom to him, unsure if he would recognise her. (She loved transforming into her ghost form nowadays, especially after the whole incident with Danny and Valerie. It was good to feel like she wasn't melting into a puddle of murky green goo.) Thankfully, it looked like he hadn't.

"What's this town like?" Dani asked, as they sat on the rooftop. "I mean, it seems pretty cool."

"It's kind of my home," Jack told her, and then he grinned. "So really, everything I say will be biased towards it."

Something crossed Dani's face. "Your home? That must be nice."

Jack gave her a curious look. "What about you? Where are you from?"

Dani shrugged, and leaned back so that she was lying on the rooftop and staring up at the sky above her. The sky was a velvety dark blue, dots glittering in it like diamonds, the moon glowing silver and white high above them. "I don't really have a home," she said.

Jack blinked, and propped his staff up and leaned against it. "What about – you know – when you – " He waved a hand, and Dani realised, with a jolt, that he was trying to ask her about where she died. It was _strange_, to say the least. People's main concern had always been the fact that she was a ghost, not who she was or who she'd been. (Not that she'd actually ever died, being a clone and a halfa and all.)

But with Jack – he wasn't trying to kill her or wreck up her life or Amity Park, and he wasn't Danny or one of his friends, and he was asking about her, like she was an actual person.

"It kind of happened," Dani decided to say, "when I was staying with my – my dad in Wisconsin." Her face darkened, and she shivered slightly as she remembered Vlad; something that Jack didn't miss, and he almost felt guilty, asking her about a past life that she probably wasn't fond of remembering. "But it was never my _home_. I guess if I had a home, it'd be this place called Amity Park. I've got a cousin there and stuff."

"Amity Park?" echoed Jack, and his mind ran to Tooth again – "I remember that place! Tooth was complaining about it."

Dani frowned. "Tooth?"

"You know," Jack said. "The Tooth Fairy."

Her eyes widened in disbelief: "The _Tooth Fairy_?" When he nodded, her eyes glowed an even brighter green, and she said excitedly, "The Tooth Fairy? Are you serious?"

Jack almost felt a bit upset with her reaction; was she really already starting to lose her belief? "Yeah, the Tooth Fairy," he said. "She's real, you know. And Santa Claus, and the Sandman, and the Easter Kangaroo."

"No way!" Dani said, excitedly, and she rose up into the air at that, her face splitting into a wide grin: "That is _so _cool! Is Santa Claus really all jolly and everything? How does he travel around the entire world in one night? And how does the Tooth Fairy collect all the teeth around the world? There's got to be millions of kids losing teeth every day! And does the Sandman really throw sand in your eyes to make you sleep? And the Easter – wait, did you just call him the Easter Kangaroo?"

Jack laughed at her expression, at the torrent of words that poured out from her. She may have been dead, and had died young – but she was still exactly like a kid. He thought of how different she was from the Dani he'd seen earlier that day, the new friend Jamie had made. Even though she'd gone wild in the snowball fight, he'd seen her defensive stance, seen the slightly guarded look in her eyes, like she'd been through a lot. But this ghost Dani Phantom – she seemed so much happier, so much more relaxed.

"He's called North, actually," he said to her, as she floated in the air next to him, now sitting cross-legged. "Santa Claus. He jumps up and down the chimneys like you wouldn't believe, and his sleigh – man, you should see his sleigh! And Tooth's got millions of these little fairies, they fly all around helping her collect teeth. And Sandman has this golden sand, he doesn't throw sand into people's eyes! And, yeah, the Easter Kangaroo." Here a grin broke out on Jack's face: "But don't tell him I said that. He's the Easter Bunny, but really I think he's a kangaroo."

Dani absorbed this information, her eyes shining green, and Jack thought that she looked just a bit like Jamie when he'd first discovered the Guardians.

And then she seemed to suddenly realise something else.

"Wait," she said, and she frowned a little, "why was she complaining about Amity Park?"

Jack shrugged. "Her fairies are too scared to go there. They're afraid of the ghosts."

"They don't have to be," Dani said, confidently. "Danny's always got the ghosts under control." At his confused look, she explained, "Danny Phantom, with a double _n _and a _y_. I'm Dani with an _i_. He's, like, the ghost hero of Amity Park. My cousin."

Jack blinked at her. "Your _cousin's _a ghost too?"

She grinned at him, and shrugged. "He got into an accident in some lab," she said, cheerfully. "I only really met him when we were both ghosts." Which was, of course, entirely true. If Danny hadn't been a ghost, Dani would never have been created, and she would never have met him. "Well, we're not _really _cousins. We're just related."

"Related," Jack repeated, and watched as Dani nodded cheerfully. Like it was perfectly normal to explain her death and talk about another ghost like it was a perfectly normal occurrence.

But then, it probably was a perfectly normal occurrence. She was a ghost, after all. She wasn't like him, who'd spent three hundred years on his own without a single memory from his past life apart from Burgess.

"Can you tell me more about North and the Tooth Fairy and the Sandman and the Easter Bunny?" Dani asked, then, and Jack thought she really was just like a little kid – a little kid eager to hear about stories of people she'd probably only really thought of myths. As far as Jack knew, ghosts didn't mix with the Guardians and other spirits much. Something about ghosts being far too obsessive and violent.

Jack grinned at her. "If you like, I could bring you by the North Pole," he said. "I mean, if he's okay with it. He probably wouldn't mind."

"Are you for real?" Dani's whole face lit up.

"Oh, yeah," Jack said. "I'm going there for a meeting with the other Guardians in a couple of days, and I could ask North. I mean, Christmas _is _over. He doesn't have much to do right now."

"That'd be _so cool_!" She nearly shot up into the air again, grinning brightly. "Thank you so much!"

"Hey, no promises yet," laughed Jack. He couldn't help it – Dani was like a little bundle of energy, with her bright white hair and excited leaps into the air and her shining green eyes. "But I'll try."

"That's good enough!" she said. "This is _so _cool!" And then suddenly a confused look came across her face: "Wait, Guardians?"

Jack nodded: "Yeah, it's a long story."

"I've got the whole night to listen," Dani said, settling back down so she was back on the rooftop. It was true – she was far from sleepy, and besides, if she was the next day, she could always find some place and sleep it off. It wasn't like the cold bothered her. And besides, Jack was _interesting_. She'd met plenty of people around before on her travels, but she almost only ever interacted with them as a human. She hardly ever saw ghosts outside of Amity Park, though Skulker did occasionally come after her, and sometimes Johnny 13 or Ember or someone else cropped up.

Jack grinned at her. "Well, it started with the moon – "

* * *

><p>When the sun rose, Jack left to spread snow in other areas, and once he'd left, Dani slipped into a dark alleyway and transformed back to her human form.<p>

She yawned as she stepped out of the alleyway, and almost without thinking, she began to walk – and before she knew it, she'd made her way back to the park, where she'd met Jamie and the others the day before.

Jack Frost. She considered the winter spirit, as she made her way deeper into the park. She'd been wary of him when she'd first met him, of course she'd been; the few ghosts she'd encountered weren't exactly friendly, and her ghost sense hadn't even gone off when he'd floated down onto the snow.

But then, he was a _spirit_. So he wasn't exactly a ghost. And he was a Guardian, too, which she thought was pretty cool. She didn't know much about Santa Claus or the Tooth Fairy or the Sandman or the Easter Bunny, not _actually _having had a childhood, but she knew enough. And it was _so _cool.

She yawned, then, sleepily, and blinked her eyes. It had been great talking to Jack, and being able to be in her ghost form while mixing with someone, but she was so _tired _–

Dani trudged through the snow and found a bench, in a more secluded area of the park, as far as she could tell, and she settled herself onto it. It was hardly even snowing, and the trees made a pretty nice shady canopy against the sun, and she had her jacket and all –

Yawning, she curled up on the bench and fell asleep.

It wasn't a few hours later when she was prodded awake and heard a concerned voice asking: "Dani?"

She blinked her blue eyes open to see the worried face of Jamie Bennett staring down at her.

* * *

><p><strong>any thoughts? haha<strong>


	3. the bennetts

"Jamie," Dani yawned, as she propped herself up on the bench and smiled at him sleepily, her eyes still blinking tiredly. "Good morning."

"It's afternoon," Jamie said, automatically, his eyes wide. "What are you – why are you sleeping on a bench in the middle of winter?"

"Oh." Dani looked down, vaguely, and then glanced up at him sheepishly. "I didn't get to sleep last night. And I got tired."

"But why are you sleeping _here_?" Jamie demanded. "Aren't you freezing? Why aren't you at home?"

Dani chuckled, uneasily, and drew her eyes away. "The funny thing about that," she said, "is where to go when you're sleepy and don't have a home, you know? The bench seemed as good as any other bench."

"You don't – " Jamie's eyes were wide with disbelief: "You don't have a _home_?"

Dani shrugged, and laughed again nervously. She _knew_ she should have found a better hiding place. It wasn't like she disliked Jamie – she'd had loads of fun with him yesterday – but she also knew how people reacted to a homeless kid. She was not planning to be put into foster care, or _anything _like that. Not a chance.

Even though it would be really easy for her to escape.

Jamie sat down next to her. "You have to tell me _everything_," he said, firmly.

"Hey, I'm just a homeless kid. I drift around from place to place, I steal every now and then if I don't have any money, and when I can, I find a way to earn cash." Dani grinned weakly, spread her hands before her. "What else do you need to know?"

"Why do you _not _have a home?" Jamie demanded. "Parents, family, friends?"

Something tugged at Dani's heart, and at the way he was looking at her, looking so concerned and so worried. "I ran away from my dad," she admitted. "I couldn't go back to him. And I don't have a mum, or any other relatives. I mean, I have friends, but I'd rather travel, you know? It's more fun."

She beamed at him.

"Fun?" Jamie echoed, still staring at her. "_Fun_?"

"I know, people think I'm crazy," Dani said. "But it's not that bad a way to live."

She was looking at him with wide, bright eyes, and in that moment Jamie could see that she _was _okay with living this way – on the road, without a roof over her head, and nowhere to call home.

"You can't stay here," said Jamie.

"I'm not planning to," Dani grinned at him, and she laughed and leaned back on the bench.

And Jamie couldn't help but think that her grin was maybe kind of cute.

"You can stay with me," Jamie offered; and then he flushed red. "I mean, not with _me_. I mean, kind of with me. In my house. With my mum and my sister Sophie."

Dani just stared at him in shock.

"Wait, what?"

Nobody offered her a place to _stay_. Ever. After all, she was a homeless kid off the streets – and as far as she knew, people almost always associated homeless kids with bad news, especially if she were an eleven-year-old on the streets alone. Sure, there were always the people who wanted to bring her to social services, but she always escaped.

But hardly anyone offered her a place to stay before. Maybe a lift, but that was about it. Not a place to _stay_.

Jamie seemed to notice her hesitation.

"I mean, I know it might be weird, but we've got the space," he said. "And you can't stay out here on your own! It's not safe. Plus, you'll freeze."

Dani almost let out a giggle at that. _Not safe. Freeze_.

But Jamie was looking at her so earnestly that Dani almost subconsciously found herself scratching the back of her head.

She could accept. If Jamie's mum was as nice as he was, then she wouldn't mind. A real bed, or a couch, or anything, seemed like a good alternative to sleeping on a bench in the park or staying up the night. And food. Good, warm food would be amazing. Besides, if Jamie's mum tried to do anything like call up social services to get her to foster care or something, she could always just run off, the same way she always did.

Dani tilted her head as she looked at him.

"Okay," she said, finally.

* * *

><p>Mrs Bennett, to Dani's relief, hadn't said a thing about social services.<p>

But she didn't let her guard down just yet. Mrs Bennett could think that the first night a homeless girl was sleeping in her house wasn't the best time to approach the topic of foster care. And, to be fair, Mrs Bennett had been wonderful. She'd accepted Jamie's explanation of Dani, and Dani had met Sophie – a cute blond girl who had giggled and just stared hard at Dani's eyes and repeated the word "Blue".

Cute kid.

Dani supposed, that if she were a _normal _eleven-year-old girl, she'd be all over Sophie. Unfortunately, she had the genes of a fourteen-year-old boy.

So while it was undeniable that Sophie was pretty adorable, she wasn't too keen when Sophie proceeded to drape herself all over the halfa.

Thankfully, Mrs Bennett had gotten Sophie to bed, and had showed Dani the guest room where she could sleep for the night. It was a pretty nice room – kind of small, to be sure, but it was warm and the bed was comfortable. Much better than anywhere she'd been sleeping for a long, long time.

Dani stared up at the moon from the window of the guest room she'd been given.

The moon.

She thought of Jack Frost, from the night before. He was, certainly, without a doubt, ridiculously nice. And he'd been very easy to talk to. She'd never really known that spirits existed – though she supposed she should've guessed. After all, if ghosts existed, there were sure to be plenty of strange things in the world.

And Santa Claus! And the Tooth Fairy, and the Easter Bunny, and the Sandman!

Sometimes, Dani wished she really did have a proper childhood.

_He could be around somewhere outside_, a voice inside her head said.

Jack Frost. It'd be nice to see him again.

There was a knock on the door, and Jamie stuck his head in. "Dani?"

"Yeah?" She twisted her head away from the window.

He grinned at her, almost shyly. "Do you wanna play video games or something?"

* * *

><p>Jamie almost regretted asking her to play video games with him. <em>Almost<em>.

She was literally pounding him and sending the figures onscreen running back crying. There was a glint in her eyes as she jumped up on the beanbag, punching her fist into the air as the words GAME OVER flashed on the screen for what must've been the tenth time in half an hour.

"You slaughtered me again," Jamie said, somewhat in awe, as he lowered his video game controller. "How did you do that?"

Dani just grinned and laughed as she bounced back down onto the beanbag. "It's a secret," she told him, her eyes glinting. "You wanna go another round?"

"You'll just kill me again," Jamie mourned.

"I'll go easy on you!"

"Then that's no fair!"

"I could kick your butt at it again," Dani suggested, grinning.

Jamie threw a pillow at her head.

She responded by grabbing it and whacking it down on his arm.

When Mrs Bennett checked in on them some ten minutes later, it was to discover Jamie chasing Dani around the room as the two children laughed, batting at each other with pillows as Dani leapt over a chair and skidded to a halt in a corner by the window.

Mrs Bennett leaned against the doorway and smiled.

"Gotcha!" came the cry from her son, but no sooner was it out of his mouth than did Dani duck under his arm, and end up behind him, hitting him over the head with her own pillow.

"Gotcha," she said, grinning cheekily, until Jamie turned around and tackled her. They ended up rolling on the floor, laughing, Dani trying to squirm out of his grasp, until they came to a stop by one of the beanbags.

"Well, it looks like you two are having fun," Mrs Bennett said, amused.

Jamie grinned, straightened himself up. "Hey, Mum."

"Hey to you too."

"Hi, Mrs Bennett," Dani chirped as she pushed herself upright and promptly pushed Jamie off the beanbag.

Mrs Bennett couldn't help but beam at the dark-haired girl. Homeless though she was, there was something about Dani that made you trust her and want to take care of her.

"It's time for bed, kids," she said, pointedly.

"Right. I'd better go back to the guest room – "

"You could stay in my room!"

Mrs Bennett blinked at that. So did Dani.

Jamie turned to smile at his mother pleadingly: "Please? We can just get the mattress out from the guest room! It'd be fun! We won't stay up too late, I promise!"

"Well – " Mrs Bennett hesitated, and then she caught sight of the look on Dani's face. It was incredulous, and she looked – touched. Like no one had offered anything like that before.

Mrs Bennett softened. "All right, then."

"Yes!" Jamie cheered. "C'mon, Dani, I'll help you move the mattress in – "

* * *

><p>When Jack landed on the window that opened into Jamie's room, he blinked and stopped short.<p>

Jamie was there, all right. He was awake, which was not surprising at all, even though it was nearly ten thirty. No, what was surprising was that there was a scrawny girl on a mattress on the floor at the foot of his bed, and they were talking animatedly, excitedly.

He pushed open the window, gently.

It wasn't Jamie's head who shot up first. It was hers. And when she saw him, she beamed at him brightly.

Well, that was certainly a change from yesterday.

"Jack!" Jamie grinned at him. "You remember Dani, right?"

"Course I do. Kid, you make even _me _look like I suck at snowball fights." Jack raised his eyebrows and smiled at her, sinking onto the edge of Jamie's desk.

She stuck out her tongue at him. "Maybe you actually do suck."

"Are you kidding me? I'm Jack Frost. I practically invented snowball fights." He sent a snowflake her way, icy blue and cold, and watched her eyes widen as it drifted over to her: "What are you doing here, anyway?"

Jamie glanced over at Dani, who was still staring at the snowflake, a smile spreading over her face.

"She's homeless," Jamie said. "So I offered her a place to stay."

Jack frowned, sat up straighter. "Homeless?"

"You know," she said. "No home to call my own?"

"But – you're a kid!"

She rolled her eyes, her attention now drawn away from the snowflake. "Thanks, Jack, I kind of realised that." She seemed, he realised, much more comfortable around him than she'd been the previous day. "It's fun, you know. I travel a lot."

"Bet you haven't travelled more than me."

"That's cos you fly around the world!" The smile on her face looked a little strange now, a kind of amused smile that almost put him on edge because it was an _I know something you don't _smile. "I just travel."

"She's awesome at video games," Jamie told Jack.

"That's because I'm awesome at _everything_," Dani said, automatically.

"Someone's very modest," Jack grinned.

"Someone's very _honest_," she corrected.

Jack just laughed, shook his head. "Sure." He settled back down onto the desk again: "Hey, you ever been to a place called Amity Park?"

"Amity Park?" she repeated.

Jamie wrinkled his nose: "What's Amity Park?"

"It's supposed to be the most haunted town in the US," she told Jamie, and then she turned back to Jack: "Why do you ask?"

"I met a ghost last night," he shrugged. "Dani Phantom. Like your name."

"Ah." Dani nodded, and a grin broke out on her face. "Don't you think she's really cool?"

"I was kind of looking for her tonight," Jack admitted, and he turned to Jamie: "You'd like her."

"A _ghost_?" was all Jamie could say. "Ghosts are real?"

He stared at the both of them in disbelief.

"I'm real," Jack reminded him, chuckling.

Dani laughed, slid to the edge of her mattress and smiled up at Jamie. "There are loads of ghosts," she told him. "But the most famous one of all is Danny Phantom, the ghost hero of Amity Park."

"You've met him?" Jack asked.

"A few times," said Dani, and there was that strange smile on her face again. "He's a really amazing guy. You know, there's this one ghost who keeps trying to be evil but I swear he's _so _bad at it, he's called the Box Ghost, and – "

* * *

><p>When Mrs Bennett opened the door the next morning, it was to find both kids snoring away on their mattresses peacefully, and it took nearly fifteen minutes for her to get her son up.<p>

"What happened to that promise of not staying up late?" she whispered to him as he blinked his eyes open sleepily.

"It wasn't _that _late," he muttered, groggily.

Mrs Bennett only smiled and shook her head.

* * *

><p><strong>hey, guys. thanks for the reviews! it was really hard to try and actually get this chapter done, and i hope you guys aren't disappointed with how it turned out. i really wasn't sure what to write or how to write it best - i kept redoing it!<strong>

**anyway, don't worry my friends. all questions about what shall happen and whether Danny shall appear and etc...shall be answered in the story. heh.**

**so...any comments? haha**


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